Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 404, June, 1849

by Various

Lord Durham, in speaking of this party, and of that which opposed it, observes:—

"At first sight it appears much more difficult to form an accurate idea of the state of Upper than of Lower Canada. The visible and broad line of demarcation which separates parties, by the distinctive characters of race, happily has no existence in Upper Canada. The quarrel is one of an entirely English, if not British, population. Like all such quarrels, it has, in fact, created not two but several parties, each of which has some objects in common with some one of those to which it is opposed. They differ on one point and agree on another; the sections which unite together one day are strongly opposed the next; and the very party which acts as one against a common opponent, is in truth composed of divisions seeking utterly different or incompatible objects. It is very difficult to make out, from the avowals of parties, the real objects of their struggles; and still less easy is it to discover any cause of such importance as would account for its uniting any large mass of the people in an attempt to overthrow, by forcible means, the existing form of government."

There could not have been anything more mischievously incorrect, or more likely to lead to unfortunate conclusions, than these statements. We can safely challenge the whole parliamentary history of the province, the character of the leading measures and of the leading men, and the result of every election, for twenty-five years, to find even a reasonable pretext for them, although we believe they were made in full conviction of their truth by the nobleman who made them. Of course, he could not have properly understood what he was writing about. For six successive elections previous to the rebellion, the whole history of England does not afford an example of each party's going to the hustings with so little change in men, measures, principles, or feelings, as in every one of these. In every new House of Assembly the same identical leaders, and the same followers, singled out the same men four years after four years; and neither accidents nor changes, the reproaches of treason on the one side, or the accusations of corruption on the other, caused the loss of a man to one party or the gain of one to the other. The whole heart, soul, and hopes of the two parties were as distinct and opposite as those of any two parties that ever had an existence. Nor could it have been otherwise, when the tendencies of the one were so manifestly against the existence of a fabric, which every feeling of the other urged them to preserve at all hazards and under all circumstances.

At last an important event in the history of the province brought the contest between these parties to an issue. When Sir Francis Head assumed the government in 1836, he found the party which had opposed it for so many years with a large majority in Parliament. With the view, if possible, of reconciling the two parties, and of getting both to unite with him in furthering the real interests of the province, he formed an executive council of the leaders of both. But the council had scarcely been formed, before the leaders of the party which had been so perpetually in opposition declined remaining in it, unless Sir Francis would surrender up to them, practically, the same powers that are enjoyed by the ministry in England. This he neither could nor would do. An angry correspondence ensued. They significantly pointed, in the event of the character of the struggle being changed, to aid from the great democracy of America. He asserted that the great right arm of England should be wielded, if necessary, to support the crown. They finally concluded by stopping the supplies. He dissolved the house.

In the election contest which ensued, it was distinctly and emphatically declared by the government, that the contest was no longer as between party and party in a colony, but as between monarchy and democracy in America. Monarchy was, in fact and in truth, the candidate at the election. And whether the whole of the party engaged in this desperate opposition participated in the declaration made to Sir Francis, that they would look for aid to the States, and which elicited from him the reply, "Let them come if they dare," is not a matter that they have ever enlightened the public upon. But that he was forced and obliged to make monarchy the candidate in this election, or let democracy threaten and bully him out of the country, is a historical fact, and incontrovertible in the Canadas, but most grossly and most unfortunately misunderstood in England.

The government party gained the election. But after the contest, the opposition, seeing their hopes of success—which were founded upon the plan of embarrassing the government into their measures, by gaining majorities in parliament and stopping the supplies—all destroyed by the result of this election; and knowing that immigration was every year adding to the strength of their opponents, finally determined to change the struggle from the hustings and the parliament, to the camp and the battle-field—to risk all in a bold attempt to strike down the oak at a blow, instead of attempting to destroy it, branch by branch, by democratic measures and factious legislation. That there were men of this party who did not approve of this desperate step, and that there were others who thought it premature, we believe and know; but that the great body of the party itself sympathised with the leaders in it, and would have gloried in, and contributed by all the means in their power to their success, had it been attainable, we are not only sure of, but could prove by the history of the whole affair, given by those who had the best means of understanding it.

When Lord Durham arrived in Canada, he found this party in the situation of masses of threatening, but scattered clouds. Some had voluntarily withdrawn to the States; others were there, either to escape arrest, or from consciousness of their guilt in the rebellion. The great body of the party remained in the province, with all those feelings towards England and her loyalists, that humbled pride, many sufferings, a contemptible struggle, and a mortifying defeat, were likely to engender. But though the storm had passed over, the clouds were nearly all left. The party had, in reality, gained by experience much more than it had lost in numbers. It had come to the understanding that England's great right arm could not be so easily broken. It had learned, and its friends in the States had learned—what was most useful to both under the circumstances—that if England's institutions were to be destroyed in America, it must be done by some other means than by blows and bayonets.

And it was with this party, thus situated, and composed of the materials, and influenced by the considerations, we have mentioned, that Lord Durham proposed, by a union of the provinces, to neutralise the legislative influence of the French of Lower Canada—to destroy their supremacy, which was pregnant with rebellion, and to subvert their power, which had been synonymous with decay. For without the aid of this party, or a great portion of it, the loyalists could not accomplish this; much less could it ever be accomplished if this party should happen to unite with the French. A vast power, too, whether for good or for evil, and hitherto unknown in a colony, was thrown among them all to be scrambled for. We mean a power analogous to that of the ministry in England, and known by the name of a Responsible Government in Canada. This power, always held in England by the heads of great parties—by men of lofty intellects and great characters—by men who were literally invested with the moral worth, the intelligence, the rank, and the honour of millions—this mighty power was tossed up in the Canadas like a cap in a crowd, to fall upon the head of whomsoever it might chance. It mattered not whether it was a Frenchman, the dearest object of whose existence was the destruction of England's power, that gained the majority. The cap must be his. It mattered not whether it was a democrat, whose secret but highest aim was the annihilation of England's monarchy, that succeeded at the elections: the mantle of England's honour, and of upholding England's crown in America, must fall upon him. We should be sorry to propose the curtailment of a single privilege of a single Briton, in any part of the world where the flag of his country waves over him. In what we shall have to say hereafter as to the government of the colonies, we do not intend doing so. But what we mean to say of this vast power, which was thrown among the people to be scrambled for at this time in the Canadas, is, that what in England must have been, from the very nature of things, a guarantee for all orders in the state being preserved and protected under it, was in the Canadas, equally from the nature of things, precisely the reverse. No ministry in England could be formed without the nobility, the gentry, the wealth—all that owed its all to the preservation of the institutions of the country—being represented in it. In the Canadas a ministry could be—yes, from the very nature of things, a ministry must be—formed, where Frenchmen, who hated England—where democrats, who hated monarchy, must control the destinies of England's subjects—the existence of England's empire in the west. We would not be understood, therefore, as desiring to curtail a single privilege; but we would, nevertheless, keep edge-tools out of the hands of madmen and enemies. We would not remove the rope from the neck of another to put it round our own.

Extraordinary though it seem that human credulity could go so far—if the character of the parties, if the character even of the measures of the parties, in Upper Canada was understood—as to expect that the giving to the one which had opposed the government, as it were by nature, the power, by uniting with the French, of crushing its enemies for ever, that it would not do so; that it would not join with its old allies in dividing the spoils of prosperity, as it had already done in sharing the mortifications of defeat; that it would not join them, even for the purpose of having revenge, each of its own enemy in its own province;—yet such was the hope, such the infatuation of Lord Durham. He let a little stream of abstract right fall into a whole sea of French prejudices and democratic infatuations, and he expected that it would change the great face of the waters. And what has been the result?—that the little stream has been lost in the great sea; that, instead of its changing the sea, it has but added to its weight; that all the prejudices, all the infatuations are left; and the power that was expected to change them has been converted into tools for them to work with.

Up to the last election, the French had never fairly recovered their former influence, or rather had not the opportunity of fully exerting their powers in the elections. Up to the same period, the reform party, as they styled themselves in Upper Canada, had laboured under a similar disadvantage. The latter had suffered for the want of its leaders, three of whom were outlaws in the States, as well as from other causes. But at the last election—a fair one for all parties—the French recovered all their former power, and the Upper Canadian party all its former counties. The French, therefore, were making all the strides they could towards the domination that, according to Lord Durham, was pregnant with rebellion; the reform party had just the opportunity that he fondly wished for them, of checking the evil, and of establishing an enlightened and moderate British party between the two extremes. And what did they do? The measures and the facts must speak for themselves.